Roughly four years ago, Granik came across the manuscript for Daniel Woodrell’s novel “Winter Bone,” a quietly effective drama about an overburdened teen trying to look after her two younger siblings and mentally-handicapped mother in Missouri’s Ozark woods and tracking down her meth-head father. An instantaneous fan of the book, Granik, with co-writer/producer Anne Rosellini and Director of Photographry Michael McDonough, used McDonough’s “humbly flush” paycheck from shooting Trump’s reality series “The Apprentice” to option the rights to “Winter’s Bone.”

A self-described “practitioner of daily life,” Granik, who won the director’s award at the 2004 Sundance for her film “Down to the Bone,” ultimately decided to shoot her naturalistic film on location in the Ozarks in February and March of last year. She and her crew scouted for two years, beginning in Howell, MO — near Woodrell’s house — but ultimately settled on Springfield, which was closer to the airport. She also choose to shoot in houses on real people’s property, exchanging new clothes for various families’ frayed coats and flannels, and observing as the close-knit community dealt with after-effects of the area’s drug culture and methamphetamine problem.

In the film, actress Jennifer Lawrence plays lead character Ree Dolly. Granik says that while she wasn’t worried about the performance of her actors (“I knew what I had from watching in the editing room”), she did think heavily about “the complexity of representing a culture that is not your own” and how the film was going to be received. “I tried to work on that initially by asking the [film participants[ to read the book,” she said. “Because these are complicated subjects. But by the time we decided to roll, everyone was at peace with what was going on.”

Though “Winter’s Bone” has garnered largely positive reviews at Sundance this past week, the film has not yet been acquired, likely due to its difficult and potentially unmarketable subject matter. Granik remains somewhat hopeful. ”I think there will always be mavericks that see and pick up good films,” she said. “But it’s phenomenally challenging to make an independent film right now. It’s daunting to the point where most of the time between films, you have no hope.” As for her risk-taking investors, Granik said, “You can’t help but give them a round of applause at this point, in this economy. People who take risks in bad times? They’re like cultural heroes.”

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.